Visual RFID Tags and Interactive Visual RFID Networks

• US 20120287095A1
• Filed: 06/20/2012
• Published: 11/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Holdings Corporation
• Original Assignee: Omni-Id Limited (Assa Abloy AB)
• Inventors: Cote, Andre, Nabrotzky, Edmund S.
• Granted Patent: US 10,217,039 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0702 the arrangement including a battery
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07707 the visual interface being a display, e.g. LCD or electronic ink
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management

Abstract

RFID driven display system components such as wireless displays (visual RFID tags) and multi-antenna wireless RFID readers that monitor/control the RFID driven displays in order to provide visual real-time information to display viewers and/or provide useful information to a central processing station that monitors the status of and/or updates the RFID driven displays, networks including one or more of the components, and methods for using the RFID driven display system components to monitor assets in applications such as inventory control and manufacturing.

Claims

1. An edge reader comprising:

an RFID tag reader including an antenna

a wireless communications device;

a microcontroller; and

a power source.

2. The edge reader of claim 1 wherein the microcontroller coordinate the movement of data between the RFID tag reader and the wireless communications device.

3. The edge reader of claim 1 wherein the microcontroller controls the wireless transmission of data from the edge reader to a base station.

4. The edge reader of claim 1 wherein the wireless communications device operates at a wireless communications protocol selected from Bluetooth and Zigbee.

5. The edge reader of claim 1 wherein the wireless communications device is a Zigbee communications device.

6. The edge reader of claim 1 wherein the RFID reader is a UHF RFID tag reader.

7. The edge reader of claim 1 wherein the power source is an internal power source.

8. The edge reader of claim 1 including a unique identifier.

9. The edge reader of claim 8 wherein the unique identifier is an IP address.

10. An edge reader network comprising:

one or more edge readers of claim 1; and

at least on base station reader the base station reader further comprising an RFID tag reader having an antenna, a first wireless communications device for communicating wirelessly with the one or more edge controllers; and

a second communications device for communicating with a central control station.

11. The edge reader network of claim 10 wherein the edge reader wireless communications device and the base station first wireless communication device are each Zigbee communications devices.

12. The edge reader network of claim 10 wherein the edge reader RFID reader and the base station RFID reader are both UHF RFID readers.

13. The edge reader network of claim 10 wherein each of the edge readers is battery powered.

14. The edge reader network of claim 10 wherein one or more of the edge readers are capable of acquiring and transmitting RFID tag information to the base station that is out of range of the base station RFID tag reader.

15. The edge reader network of claim 10 wherein the base station interrogates RFID tags that both lie within the read range of the base station RFID tag reader and that lie outside of the read range of the base station RFID tag reader but within the range of the RFID reader of one or more of the edge readers.